


Broken Scion

by Angelic_Hellraiser



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood and Gore, Book Series: The Dark Tower, Book: The Gunslinger, CURRENTLY ON HIATUS FOR NOW, Demons, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Horror, Inspired by Game of Thrones, Psychological Horror, Sex, Slow Burn, Slow Burn Rey/Kylo Ren, THIS PROJECT WILL BE HEAVILY REVAMPED IN THE NEAR FUTURE, gunslinger!kylo, redwitch!rey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2018-12-15 15:07:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11808483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelic_Hellraiser/pseuds/Angelic_Hellraiser
Summary: Across the desert the last gunslinger follows close on the heels of his adversary. His only remaining desire of this world is to seek his vengeance, to kill the hellish sorcerer who deceived him. What he does not expect is to find the girl in a forgotten town, a forgotten place… in a forgotten land.She wants to leave with him, but he can't take a Red Witch. She belongs to the old gods, not the beaten road only for his solitary feet. Yet her whispers of his dreams, his nightmares and her eyes call to him. He has seen this girl before. And when she utters his true name, he knows she is destined to perish.For all those who walk with Ben Solo die.**ON HIATUS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. I will not be abandoning this piece! I just need some time to work out the plot and find my muse for it again.**





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> **Alternate Universe:** Heavily inspired by The Dark Tower Series, Game of Thrones and the Dune Series
> 
>  _Broken Scion_ is the current working title. It is subject to change if I decide on a better one!
> 
> _In need of a beta!!!_
> 
> Check out my other [Reylo Projects](https://reyloisblessed.tumblr.com/my-fanfiction)!

 

**_Book of the Sixth Cycle_ **

**Written and recorded by the _Shadow Scribes_**

**Documented letter of our Mother Superior Amilyn Cindel Holdo**

**Timestamp // first new moon of the Wild Summer**

 

> My Loyal Sisters,
> 
>  
> 
> We have watched and we have waited. We have nurtured and we have reaped the most promising of the sacred lines. By the terrible old gods we have stood sentinel, safeguarding these children of power. There were many in the early cycles. Countless generations with immense promise. A time where the neutrality of our agenda bode us well.
> 
> But no longer.
> 
> The Night of Tears saw our great design razed to ash in the face of a beast. A demigod of demons birthed from a well of teeth and hunger. A fatherless bastard of the Penumbra. There was a man who aided this monster. One of our own.
> 
> So many lives lost. The sacred blood of those children soaked the land until the whole of the country was red. There was murder. There was rape. Unspeakable practices all for the myth, the legend of the great and holy Dark Tower at the navel of all worlds.
> 
> Only one sacred family remains, the scion of Anakin Skywalker. A traitorous lineage. A murderous and fallen abomination.
> 
> His seed pursues the beast across the desert and this boy will find his end in that fatal place. We will permit him to meet our banished sister in the wastes. We will not intervene, for she will be the end of them both. Then, our task may begin anew.   
> 
>  
> 
> Blessed be our works,
> 
>  Mother Superior, Amilyn Cindel Holdo, Daughter of the Glass House and Descendant of the Eld

 

-

\--

**… Somewhere Across the Void.**

**\--**

-

 

Consciousness strives for purchase amid the chaotic ripples of the macrocosm. A tender beating echoes, but it is faint within the thunderous flutter of angry darkness.

“My son lives. The light in him. It shines, still. _My son is alive_.”

Ben.

Come home.

My son.

_My… son…_

 

-

\--

**… Trapped Inside the Confines of a Broken Mind.**

\--

-

“Will you help me?”

“Yes. _Anything_.”

It is only dark here. So very dark. _You came too late. Your son is gone._

The heat of the man’s blood seeped through his gloves. He can still feel it, like a brand on his flesh. The scent of the man’s coat, the fever of the fire. All of it… branded into him.

“You’re a monster!”

“Yes I know.”

_Please… Help me…_


	2. A Grandfather's Legacy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter Inspiration:** [The River - Blues Saraceno](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncic96eYXRE) & [Fire and Blood Pave the Way](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/327848047863728569/)  
>  **Warning(s):** Physical abuse and patricide mention
> 
>  
> 
> _Please don't forget to comment! Thank you!_

_“In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”_ **–** **Desiderius Erasmus**

 

 _“Where the world ends is where you must begin.”_ **– The Gunslinger**

 

 _“The night is dark and full of terrors.”_ **– Game of Thrones**

 

 

-

\--

-

**Secreted Beneath a Hidden Hollow**

-

\--

-

 

 

A snake of a figure stands tall and looming in the darkness, shadow wrapping his golden robes in whispers of hunger. He tilts his translucent head, the exposed tendons of his long neck protruding like diseased roots from a parched swampland. Cold blue eyes, the color of hellish winter, survey the body of an ancient man, not as ancient as he, of course, but pale and withering all the same.

The man is his loyal apostle, the last surviving piece of a world moved on. Armitage Hux he’d once been called. Shall he be called this name again, the figure muses. Perhaps. He towers over the man who is hunched to his knees, though not by choice.

“It’s time.” He murmurs, a low, rolling hiss.

Hux’s razor-boned shoulders tremble with anticipation as he lifts his head, a great effort to be sure, and a poor excuse for a mouth peels back over empty gums. He attempts to speak, but a wet cough stifles him, blood, black as tar, trickling down his chin.

“Calm yourself.” The figure croons. “All good things to those who _wait_.”

A flicker of life in those milky grey eyes. They were once blue; not the violent daggers of the figure above him, but a calculating blue, full of cunning… and fear. He remembers his eyes, a gift from his father. A feckless waste of a man.

The figure raises a robe covered arm to reveal prolonged fingers and square-flat nails. Dangling from those fingers a red crystal winks shyly in the eerie green florescence of the cave. Where he'd gotten such a treasure is irreverent. Hux shuffles to his feet, knees cracking and teethless gums failing to contain a shameful groan. He swallows at the thick grating lump that is his throat and extends a trembling arm.

“Fail me, my faithful child, and I shall leach the life from the marrow of your bones.”

As Hux’s fingers close around the crystal it warps and ripples, revealing an image. Sheets of sand grating against a tall faded shadow on the horizon. And snow. _What a curious thing_ , he muses. Then, a warmth spreads from the crystal into his fingers, his wrist, his arm. It twines its way through his body like a thread tightening lose flesh and diminishing hard wrinkles. His mouth falls open, shocked. Sparse patches of yellowing hair atop his head darken to a lovely autumn gold and countless liver moles fade. New hair dusts his forehead, his neckline, his ears. Fresh thickened lashes rim his eyes, which deepen to that familiar and cunning blue, as supple flesh softens the lines of his frame.   

“Supreme leader.” He exhales shakily, a delicious baritone tenor. And his teeth, oh his glorious teeth.

The figure smiles again, deformed and bloodless. “Your first task is find the oracle beyond the wastelands. She calls herself Maz. She holds something… special to me.”

Hux stares down lovingly at the crystal, his distracted tone sharpening with hatred. “What of Kylo Ren?”

“The girl child will do as she was bid. You needn’t worry.”

“The girl?” Hux glances up, curiosity tugging at his brows.

“As I said, you needn’t worry on Kylo Ren… _general_.”

The younger man fails to hide his shock at the title. How many years have passed since anyone has called him by his rightful rank? Unexpected tears burn at his eyes.

The figure grins knowingly. “You are my general, are you not, Armitage Hux?”

He nods emphatically without thought. “Yes, supreme leader.”

“I have given you back your youth, have I not?”

“You have.” He bows his head low.

That long-fingered hand finds a place on his shoulder. “Though you are more than a general, now.”

Hux looks up, his expression open and hesitant. “Supreme leader—

“Go.” The figure cuts him off with a wave of his hand. “Follow the labyrinthine road west to the forest of Takodana. Retrieve the object Maz is hiding.”

Hux nods. “What is it?”

“The crystal will show you in due time.”

With another stiff nod, Hux stands at his full height, testing the limberness of his body and makes for the entrance, but a single phrase stops him cold.

“If you should see Kylo Ren, you are not to kill him.”

Anger instantly flares at the back of his throat and he turns to demand why the supreme leader would make such an outlandish request. After all, it was Kylo Ren who locked him here in this perpetual state of living—or dying for that matter. It was Kylo Ren who destroyed his armies, his life’s work and stripped away the only goal that mattered in his life. Kylo Ren who betrayed both of them, the undeserving Scion of Skywalker the supreme leader doted upon and for what? To have him stab them both in the back?

“Sir—

“You so much as breathe in his direction, my dear general, and it will be your last breath.”  

 

-

\--

**Wandering the Wastelands**

\--

-

 

A blood sun sets and bone moons rise—a triune of death.

That is the way of this world, a world that has moved on. Years bleach away memory like the bitter winds stirring dust devils below in the desert hardpan, but not all are twisting cyclones of sand. _Some have eyes._ And those eyes look on from the hollow places where the delicacy is flesh and blood.

A payment. A sacrifice for the wicked lust of blind fools.

After the fateful Night of Tears the fabric of the world began to tear, some places worse than others, but it won’t be long before the monsters on the other side breach through. Monsters like the one wandering this forsaken desert.

A broken scion walking with battered boots in a wasted land with a wasted name. His silhouette is long and leaning, thirsting without a drop to drink. His chaps threadbare and his skin burned by the ruthless sun. He is timeless in a place ruled by the ephemeral. Despite all the endless miles, his heart beats strong. An erratic and defiant creature behind a broad cage of ribs.

It’s been six years.

He often wonders about his mother’s face. No matter how hard he tries to imagine her in the quiet moments, he cannot. He can recall the feelings of the memories, but never the actual memory. After a while though, the warmth and assurance he was so sure her face brought him seems more hopeful than true.

Not that he deserves his mother’s love. He’d long given up on that lie, but the harder lie was convincing himself he didn’t want such a thing.

He swallows, forcing the grit and dryness back down his throat until his stomach clinches, warning him not to do it again. The clinking of his spurs is muted in the shifting sand as he trudges over the dunes and his wild black curls drip with precious moisture.

Below him, a forgotten road cuts through the thick crust of alkali. A much easier path to tread, but not one he will dare walk. Those ghostly eyes slant up at him, beckoning. Hungry. Wind catches his hat, nearly snatching it from his head and he pauses, watching the dust devils die and the world fall silent.

The remaining light dips and shimmers, dizzying him, and his heart floats in his chest, eerily at ease. _What…?_

_‘Hell of a mess you’ve gotten yourself into, kid.’_

He stiffens instantly, acid burning the back of his throat. _Impossible!_ “You aren’t real.”

_‘Try again, sport.’_

It’s the thirst, he assures himself. The voice is only in his mind. Just a ghost of memory.

_‘Denial was something I had in spades.’_

“Leave me be!”

_‘Now that wouldn’t be fair, would it?’_

He fixates on the wraiths watching him from below, not willing to look in the direction of the voice. “You were much less bothersome when you were alive.”

_‘I wasn’t who you needed me to be you mean.’_

The wraiths entice him with outstretched claws of wind and sand. He sighs, jerking his gaze away from them and up to the stars. “I haven’t needed you for a long time.” Each word is a millstone around his neck.

_‘That’s where you’re wrong, Ben.’_

He grits his teeth savagely. “That is _not_ my name!”

_‘Wrong again, kid.’_

A sudden gust of wind whips the hat off his head and kicks the sand into his face. He throws his arms out before him, eyes giving up more moisture as the grains bite mercilessly behind his eyelids. He blinks repeatedly, spitting the hot taste from his mouth.

Below, he can hear the meager groans, agitated, impatient. It’s probably been ages since last they fed and they aren’t the only haggard remnants wandering this arid hell. Many a monster creeps over these shifting dunes. Like him.

He composes himself, straightening the empty water pouch at his neck and smoothing his hair. The drawstring of his hat chaffs at his skin uncomfortably and he pulls it back onto his head. With a quick skim of his fingertips, he checks the pistols in their holsters and glowers out over the horizon at nothing. “My name is Kylo Ren. That _is_ my name. _This_ is who I am.”

_‘You are a terrible liar, Ben. We both are.’_

He wrenches around, prepared to throw bitter, frothing words at the apparition, but there is no one. Only that bone-white moon. Kylo’s shoulders slacken and he inhales wearily, fixating on the heavenly satellite. The horizon still bleeds with the final residue of sunlight and the haze of the desert shivers like an ocean of mercury.

“I can lie just fine.” He whispers.

Below, the groans edge closer. Kylo licks his lips and pushes on, unwilling to allow his mind the weakness of memory. Not tonight. Not under this moon. He needs to find shelter soon and rest his body. Lack of water tomorrow will cost him. He can only hope he finds a source of water before he succumbs to the heat.

_Hope._

He scoffs and wipes the day’s sweat from his face. Hope was given up the night he murdered his father in a sea of ash and starlight.

 

-

\--

-

 

Dreams fall to nightmares swiftly and Kylo finds himself in his old room, his childhood face staring down into a watery reflection. It’s predawn. _Yes._ The day of his Coming of Age ceremony and the last time he ever saw his mother. His father is absent, which comes as no surprise, but the bitterness lacing his tongue unsettles him.

The pain shouldn’t still sting like this, but it does.

A knock sounds at his chamber door. “Ben. Are you awake? Luke is waiting for you in the garden near the hedge maze.”

“I never slept.” His dream-self mutters, gazing fixatedly into the wash bowl on his lap. A face had appeared behind him that night, a pale and damaged face.

It was the first time Kylo had seen the face, but the voice had always been there.

“Ben?”

The preteen rises to his feet, sitting the wash bowl onto his nightstand, and crosses the room to open the door. Without once glancing at his mother, he crosses back to the far window, picking up the wash bowl on the way. She enters without a word, never pausing as she closes the door and seats herself on his bed. It remains untouched, perfectly made.

She never questions, his mother. Every action is deliberate and purposeful. Her son is much the same. Even their silence is laced with deliberate and purposeful accusation.

“Your father would be here if—

“I know mother.” Ben murmurs.

“He’s proud of you.” She smiles a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

Kylo swallows, his chest aching.

“Neither he nor I need you to speak for us.” Ben’s tone sours.

“Ben—

“The ship leaves before the sun crests the sky. Uncle Luke would not want us to miss it.” Ben’s hands are balled at his sides. So are Kylo’s.

She is silent for a long time before sighing in defeat. “I’m trying to help you, Ben.”

Ben never answers, keeping his back to her. Her flowing robes rustle with movement as she stands. The sound of her shy footsteps is something Kylo will never forget, wary as she comes around to face him. Ben has gotten taller, always growing. Regardless of his age, he soars a full head above his mother.

_Was she always so small, so fragile?_

Her hand reaches out tentatively to cup his cheek. “Please try to understand, Ben. Please.”

The boy is motionless, his empty stare cast from her face. This meek creature is not his mother. This demure, anxious woman who age now betrays is not her. The bags under her eyes, the deepening wrinkles creeping along her mouth—these things are all consequences of another woman. Not his mother, because _his_ mother would never send him away. Abandon him? _Never._ “I understand mother.”  

Kylo’s body twitches, his mind swimming with rage, grating, scalding rage.

“Ben.” His mother’s other hand joins the first, pulling him forward so she can plant a kiss on his forehead. “This will be good for you. Uncle Luke can teach you how to control it.”

The boy’s lashes flicker. “Control?” _Like a dirty secret._ “That will make father happy.”

His mother’s soft expression hardens. “We’ve talked about this. You’re father—

“I know.” Ben drags his eyes to hers for the first time and something inside them frightens her.

She retreats, dropping her hands to her sides and taking a step back. “I’ll meet you down in the foyer.” When she reaches his door she turns, speaking tenderly. “You are my son, Ben. That will never change.”   

Ben never replies, waiting long after she departs to move from his spot. Kylo surveys him with a chilly glare. This would be the last time he would see his mother, a touch of grey in her chestnut hair and wrapped in plum silken robes. However, it would be those shy footsteps that would burn into his memory.

The dream fades to an ugly place Kylo Ren knows all too well. He steels himself, preparing for the pain. It comes from the dark in one venomous strike, peeling skin from his back. His knees buckle and slam onto the unforgiving marble floor.

“Pain is your ally.” A smoky voice hisses. “You friend. It will keep you angry, focused.”

Another snap and the pain blooms along his side, hot, hateful.

“Pain is the pulsing beat of every human heart.”

A third, this one forcing his face to the floor. It’s cold and feels good against his heated skin, but those aren’t tears. Those can’t possibly be tears.

“Pain is the inescapable fact of your life. Your grandfather’s life.”

A fourth.

“You name is not Ben Solo.”

A fifth. Perhaps… yes perhaps, those are tears after all.

“You are not the weak seed of your father.”

A sixth.

“You are Kylo Ren, rightful heir to your grandfather’s legacy and only living descendent of the Skywalker line.”

A seventh. The young man grins, tearstained, graceless and empty, Ben Solo no more.

Kylo snaps awake, air tearing from his lungs and his back throbbing. It takes him a moment to gain his bearings before he realizes he is lying on his tattered bedroll, sweat drenching his body. The nightmares never cease and they evaporate quickly. Sighing and rubbing a hand over his face, he glances skyward. The three moons are still bright and high, staring down at him with little emotion other than that bone white hunger.

This land is hungry, so like him.

The campfire has dwindled to tiny flickers and glowing coals, but he cares not to feed it. Darkness and monsters do not frighten him. He lies back, clasping his hands behind his head. There are more damning horrors roaming in the desolate pockets of the macrocosm.


	3. A Banished Sister

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter Inspiration:** [Trøllabundin - Eivør](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpiFmZLICgM) & [Cursed Rags of a Lonely Child](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/e1/b5/59/e1b559642d6eae1ec1a6a588ffb64395.jpg)  
>  **Warnings:** Blood mention  & various bits of snark

-

\--

**Niima Outpost**

\--

-

The stink and sweat of huddled masses in a dying ghost town is something she’s grown used to. Living in the desert so long, one forgets the feel of the wind without sand, or the vibrant blush of flowers peeking through the long grass. In truth, she can’t quite remember the color green.

Perhaps in her dreams.

She stares down at her calloused hands in the lantern’s glow, but she doesn’t need the firelight to know the pads of her fingers ache. All night she’s scrubbed at this eroded floor in this crumbling temple in this dead town surrounded by arid dunes. Today she’ll scavenge for parts from the abandoned machines in the Sinking Fields north of town.

Unkar Plutt never fails to keep her busy.

Life wasn’t always this way. Before the desert she was a promising daughter of the Sisterhood, a revered sect of women ordinarily referred to by commoners as Red Witches, but no more. Following the rules has never come natural to her and that type of defiance comes at great costs. There is always a master it seems. She’d more often defy Plutt’s orders if not for the lack of rations.

Power resides with quantity.

Her eyes drift down to her worn attire, stained off-white rags meant only for a desert rat. A servant and a scavenger, a child with no family, no home, only the possibility of starvation staring her in the face. So she must scrub until her fingers bleed, she must crawl through the metal skeletons of contraptions the world has forgotten and horde what Plutt can trade.

All trade routes have long since fallen to the sand and night phantoms save one—a main strip cutting through the alkali leading into the mountains far west. No one has ever traveled that far. Only death awaits the fool willing to make such a journey. The town elders speak of one woman who had wandered into the night seeking her son. Neither of them ever came back.

Traders adhere to the dunes and travel in groups with a star reader, but the dangers of the desert still find them on occasion. Nowhere is safe.

She came from the Heaven’s Roof of the south, a moorland child, or so she was told. The Sisterhood doesn’t bother with one’s past. The only thing of consequence is your future within the guild. Not that it matters. All her memories of early childhood are gone. There are times she thinks she began somewhere else. Maybe a different when. A different where. She can never be quite sure. Memories are a peculiar thing they eld ones say.

Tossing the rag to the floor, she gets to her feet, stretching until the hot throb of her muscles draws her heels back to the floor. She can smell the moisture from the underground well in the cave which links to the temple. The townspeople never venture too far into the cave mostly out of superstition now, but there was a time when strange lights could be seen coming from its depths... or so the old crone says.  

Her tongue cringes in her mouth thirstily but she refrains, swallowing thickly.

The harsh sound of air through an old throat startles her and she turns in time to see a decrepit woman hobbling toward her with pursed lips. A second later, spittle flies from that withered mouth and coats her boot. “Yer a bloody curse ya‘re!”

“My apologies matron. I didn’t realize you would arrive early. I—

“Don’t sass me child! I know them eyes. Yer voice may lie, but yer eyes spake truth!” The crone teeters forward with a crooked, resentful finger pointed at her. “Get to them Sinkin’ Fields. Out of my sight!”

She bites her cheek, forcing her anger deep into her gut. “Unkar Plutt wishes me—

A hand flies up, too slow to frighten her, but the message is clear. “He’s yer master. You will call ‘im _master_. Now… Get out.”

She bows her head and obeys, eyes glued to the wet smear on her boot. In the darkest recesses of her mind, she can feel the rage simmering, crackling as she bites hard enough into her tongue to bleed. The taste is visceral and it makes the strange monster in her belly howl.

Inhaling evenly, she pivots on her heel and makes her way toward the entrance, not bothering with the pail of water or the tattered rag. The crone would rather be rid of her presence than waste one more minute with her. Near the door, her staff leans against the wall and she grabs it quickly.

Outside, the sun’s early light just crests the horizon, filthy gold and dull pink. She prefers the monotone blue of predawn. It reminds her of… _something_ … but she can’t quite remember what. It flits across the edges of her consciousness like a firefly.

 _‘I feel it too…’_ a familiar voice whispers.

She pauses mid-step, the dust swirling around her ankles as a gust of wind blows through the main square. Her gaze drifts out to the dunes in the east, searching. _For what?_

Nothing. There is nothing.

Pieces of her dream creep back into her mind, chilling her blood. Streaks of red, heat, a harsh bark of sound. It was a shout. Husky, alien and wavering. He’d shouted a name. _Yes. But what name?_

 _‘Supreme leader senses it.’_ Came _that_ voice again. Silk and smoke, a peculiarly intimate baritone.

 _‘Who are you?’_ she wonders.

A flicker of deep-set eyes, velvet dusk and burning embers. She closes her own, drawing the image closer, willing it to unfold before her, to come alive. The eyes darken until only a shadowy abyss stares back… _consuming her_.

Someone hisses behind her and she jumps, whirling around to find one of the villagers—a weed eater called Nort—grinning hungrily at her, his stained mossy teeth a cavernous shadow on his yellow face. His wild beard is also streaked with the same filthy color, the color of devil-grass. For a moment, she is shocked to see him in front of her, feeling an odd sensation of wrongness, but her surface emotions quickly overwhelm her.

Disgust. It drips over her with all the rude slowness of mud.

“What do you want, Nort?” she demands curtly, her breathing shallow. His sour scent already feels as if it has saturated her flesh.

Hazy putrid eyes survey her languidly, crown to toe, before a slick tongue scrapes over nonexistent lips. “He’s comin’ fer you. I seen ‘im in the shadow. He got dead man’s eyes. I should know. I seen ‘im.”

Something about his words unsettle her, though she ignores them and turns to walk away. Ruthless fingers suddenly coil around her arm hard enough to leave a bruise and she gasps as she is jerked backwards.

“I seen the two o’ you. I seen how it ends.” Nort’s odor envelops her and she gawks at him, unable to tear her attention away. His words shake her to her very core, yet she does not understand why. He leans closer, his beard tickling her bare shoulder. “His master done told me. You follow the footsteps of a dead man, you do. And you gon’ die, too, Rey!”

She yanks away from him in a rush nearly tripping over her own feet and sprints away, unable to control her limbs. _Run! I have to run! As far away as I can from those empty eyes!_ The environment is a blur around her as her lungs burn. Her vision tunnels until she can only see the sharp cut of horizon in front of her.

_Run! Run!_

It takes several more painful breaths before she realizes she has passed the remaining buildings of town and is now barreling east, right toward those dunes.   

She staggers to a halt, her head swimming. A weird electricity snaps through her veins, agitating and terrifying her all at once. Sinking to her knees, her gaze centers on the sun. _This isn’t the only sun I’ve witnessed, is it?_  

_‘I’m being torn apart.’_

Agony abruptly spears her heart, doubling her over, though this agony is not hers. She curls tightly into her knees, elbows scraping the ground. Sand peppers her hair and one of her buns falls loose, but it doesn’t matter.

“Who are you?” she demands, instantly feeling stupid for asking the question aloud.

The voice isn’t real. It’s only in her mind. None of it is real. The sisters had told her so. It’s all nightmares… daydreams.

A fallacy of the imagination.

The memory of their pious eyes above her slanting down with nothing but cold scrutiny invades her conscious. Their robes, both black and red depending on their station, were so vibrant in the crisp light. She’d thought of blood.

Fellow sisters spoke of the red flower that visits all women when they come of age. Being too young at the time, she could only eavesdrop on private conversations about this mystical flower. Long after her banishment, however, she did come to learn of the flower and its true meaning.

“Blessed be the blood, for it is the life.” She recites on impulse, rising to her feet and placing her hands on her womb, both thumbs and index fingers forming in a downward triangle. Her eyes drift closed as she continues, “For by the salt of the sea and the iron of the land, we become as flesh. And as flesh so shall we, the sisters of Eld, protect the sacred scions of this world.”

In the distance something twinkles, but Rey’s eyes remain closed. She does not see the tall figure wandering over the dune, skin burned and thirsty, eyes glazed. She does not see him as she turns to the north, her eyes opening, and starts for the Sinking Fields.

-

\--

-

After draining the last bit of water from her canteen, she hauls the scavenged parts onto a small human drawn carriage. She’d constructed it herself from some of the metal frame work she’d salvaged which Plutt didn’t sell. The truth is, Rey has spent the last three years attempting to discover how to power the carriage using static charge.

Rainstorms are exceedingly rare in the desert, but sandstorms come often and are far more deadly. A couple times she was caught in the Sinking Fields during this phenomena and she’d hunkered down in the belly of one of the massive machines at the center of the field. She’d been exhausted and frightened, but what she witnessed within those bone-metal depths changed her life.

The storm made the beast come alive.

Even after the storm had long passed, the machinery still hummed and sparked from its exposed wires. She’d been utterly fascinated, reaching out to touch the wires, and experienced the new and unpleasant sensation of electrical shock.

A smile graces her lips at the memory.

The Reverend Mothers often spoke of a time before the world moved on, a time of flying wheels and curious wonders that spit blue fire, of moons that caused devastation and vast cities of metal and starlight.

An hour later, Rey arrives back at Niima Outpost where Unkar Plutt is waiting. Angry red skin, beady eyes and stubbed hands grabbing as she presents each piece to him. Something is off about him, though. She can sense it.

_He is uneasy._

Her eyes skirt around her, taking in the others lingering along the boardwalks and leaning shanties. It’s much the same. Everyone is alert, not dreamy from dehydration but fully cognizant. Her muscles tense as she absorbs the energy around her. _Foreign. Something foreign._ She licks her lips, concentrating. _Not something. Someone._  

“These aren’t worth much.” Plutt grunts irritably.

“They are what I could find.” She intones, face neutral.

He glares down at her from his perch. “One half portion. This is all you will receive tonight.”

Her lashes flicker as she focuses on him, but doesn’t reply.

“Now, go see to the matron.” With that he turns away, slamming the rusted shutter in her face.  

_The crone needs her help?_

Dread bubbles in her stomach as she heads for the chapel, her hands balling into fists at the sight of Nort waiting just outside. He grins at her again, a foul sickle of a grin, and mouths ‘dead’ to her as she passes through the double doors.

Inside, the dusty shafts of sunlight filter through the windows to the main pulpit above the pews. Just beyond that are two low arching corridors, one leading down to the underground cave and the other to a collection of dingy rooms. All are for storage, packed to the walls with dilapidated furniture. All but hers.

The strange energy broils around her and Rey exhales, squaring her shoulders and walking to the archway where the crone stands, that one half-dead eye glaring reproachfully at her. Rey looks at her expectantly, though she doesn’t speak. Instead she points towards Rey’s room with an ornery sneer.

Faint lamp light shines through the open door and a weak groan reaches her ears. Rey frowns.

“I ain’t touchin’ no outlander, child. You will look after ‘im.” The old hag snarls. “I’d a killed ‘im, but it be bad fortune killin’ a gunslinger.”

Rey’s heart trembles at the word— _gunslinger_. “I…”

“Don’t spake an’ do as I say!”

The rage gurgles up again, burning at her chest, but she tamps it down. “Yes, matron.”

She leaves, never looking back, and Rey’s unease is punctuated by the angry slam of the temple doors. It echoes all around her and she shuts her eyes for a moment, reciting another litany. “Enmity is a poison in the blood. It clouds the judgement of the mind. I will remain steady and focused, as calm as the still water. Through serenity I maintain control.”

Her feet shuffle forward hesitantly, approaching the room as if a wounded doe. What will she find on the other side? She peeks around the doorframe and her breath catches. At the opposite end of the room, lying motionless on her cot, is an unconscious man. The tallest one she’s ever seen. His frame engulfs the entire cot with his feet and hands touching the floor. His head is a wild mess of black waves and his feverish skin contrasts his bedraggled beard.

His kind isn’t made for the desert. _Yet… a gunslinger?_ She’s only ever heard about them.

She inches closer, her curiosity getting the better of her. He’s still wearing his boots. The blanket covers his body up to his hips, but she can easily make out his pistols in their holsters. Never has she seen such weapons before and she reaches for them, but his rusty cough startles her.

Her body freezes. The seconds tick by, her heart hammering in her throat.

Then, he exhales drowsily and turns his face away. The fear in her belly unfurls and she inhales carefully, leaning as close to him as she dares. He carries the scent of desert heat and musk. Various beauty marks dot the contours of his face and, despite the blistering sun, the exposure burns on his skin are shallow.   

 _That’s a relief at least_ , she thinks.

Her attention drifts back to the pistols at his hips as they glint in the lamp glow. He shifts again restlessly, muttering unintelligible words. Her hand creeps toward them, unable to resist. The blanket obscures most of their shape, but she only has to move it a little. Only a little.

Suddenly, a vice grip cinches down on her wrist ripping a pained cry from her mouth. She attempts to wrench her arm free, but her attention is captured at once by an intense pair of eyes, eyes the color of velvet dusk.

She stares dumbfounded.

“Who are you?” he rasps in a waterless voice.

 _The same eyes. The same._ Her heart thunders in her ears.

“Who are you?”

Rey sets her jaw. _Steady._ _No fear._ “Let me go.”

His glare darkens into a churning abyss and the grip on her wrist becomes almost unbearable. “Who. Are. You?”

Her nostrils flare. “You will let me go, gunslinger, or I will not help you.” Despite the agony of his grip, her voice is steel.

His lip peels back, trembling over his teeth, and the tendons of his neck protrude from his skin. Time passes in agonizing slowness, his glare weighing her with immeasurable contempt. Then, something passes through his eyes and she feels his grip loosen a fraction, then little more, and more, and more, until finally his hand drops away.

“Answer my question.” He rasps.

“This town doesn’t take well to outsiders. Needless to say, you are a guest under my charge.” Her expression hardens. “You will do well to remember that.” Straightening, she proceeds to the bucket of water left near the door and fills a cup.

He studies her with bleary eyes, half conscious but no less dangerous. “Unfortunate for you.” He murmurs.

She brings the cup to him and he reacts hastily, drinking and choking all at once. “Perhaps unfortunate for the both of us.” She says, watching his throat work the liquid down.

He coughs, unabashedly licking at his lips as droplets trickle down into his beard.

She sets the cup aside and brings a damp rag to his forehead. He jerks away, suspicion radiating from him. Her lips purse. “You’re in no condition to resist my aid.”

His jaw tightens and an errant lock of hair falls into his face, but he is exhausted. He can scarcely maintain the weight of his broad body with his arms and they are trembling. He can’t even hide it.

Compassion blossoms through her chest. “Just rest. You’ve the sun sickness. Your body needs to recover.”

His mouth betrays a grimace.

“I’ll watch over you.” She whispers, dabbing the cloth across his forehead. He allows it this time, his eyes drooping.

Seconds later, his head finds the lumpy pillow again and his body unwinds, all the earlier tension dissipating. Rey lingers a moment, cleaning the grit from his face. The desert has suckled all the water it could from this man.

How long has he been wandering out there and where did he come from? But most importantly, why is this man’s face haunting her dreams?

Fear slithers up from the pit of her stomach and she settles on her knees, watching his chest rise and fall. His clothes were probably black at one time, but they have faded to a ruddy sweat-stained brown, thin and frayed at the collar and sleeves. She tucks the errant lock of hair behind his ear.

Looks like she’ll be sleeping on the floor tonight.


	4. The Quickening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter Inspiration:** Wellspring - Adam Hurst  
>  **Warning(s):** invasive mind reading and general Ben Solo asshole extraordinaire moments 
> 
> -
> 
>   **PLEASE REMEMBER TO LEAVE KUDOS AND COMMENTS IF YOU LIKE THIS STORY!!!**

Kylo awakens in a haze to the cramped but welcoming cool of a small room. The cot he lies on—or more dangles off of—is about as comfortable as a gnarled bed of thorns and his spine accentuates this when he tries to sit up. Blood rushes to his head and he quickly falls back onto the pillow, pressing at his temples.

_Spinning, spinning, spinning._

He bites back a groan as he slowly gains his bearings. Pieces of the world begin to come into focus: the pulsing glow of a lamplight, shadows cast across a low ceiling, the echoing of thunder outside.

How did he get here?

His fingers skim down his chest and his breath stops. Where is his shirt? He shifts his legs, immediately thankful that he still has his pants. Wandering lower, his hands find the most crucial article of his person missing. He jerks off the cot so quickly he falls to his knees, their sickening impact barking up his legs. An involuntary snarl exits his lips and he curses himself. Then, a shuffle of movement and something cool presses to his cheek. He reacts instantly grabbing a wrist and squeezing hard. The wrist is petite but solid and the hiss of pain emitted from its owner is feminine and ever bit as incensed as he.  

“We have done this already.” Comes the disdainful growl.

Looking up he sees a feminine face, round and obscured in shadow, a slight nose and a high forehead haloed by a mess of cinnamon hair. “Who are you?” he snarls.

Her lips thin with frustration. “Let go of my wrist, or I’ll make use of your pistol.” A hammer cocks back and he glances down, eyeing _his_ weapon in her hand.

 “I’ll break your wrist.” His grip tightens. “Give me my weapons.”

Her index finger draws the trigger back ever so slightly. “Let my wrist go, gunslinger. _Now_.”

“Don’t be stupid, girl.”

The hand at his cheek curls into a fist and the rag it holds weeps water onto his chest. “I will not ask again.” She grits through her teeth. “ _Don’t be stupid, gunslinger_.”

She won’t kill him. He can sense that at least, but there’s no point in calling her bluff. He can also sense she means him no harm, for now anyway. And there is _something_ … a curious flicker of energy, a vibration, low and almost undetectable to his senses. He attempts to extend his awareness out beyond the room, but as always, he stumbles into a void, falling with no true destination. Just emptiness.

Rage clouds his mind and he leans into her face. “Your tone lacks conviction.” He releases her wrist, throwing it back at her.

She rubs at it angrily. "Yet you let me go."

"You pose no threat to me, girl. Not now at any rate." He glares at his surroundings. 

Her façade wavers. “I have a name.” She tries to sound intimidating again, but it comes out a whisper. “It’s Rey.”

Suddenly, the night before jerks him back. A distorted reel of raucous shouts, squeamish hands and the bitter stink an old hag. Then, a whiff of something younger. The girl— _Rey_. She had gone for his pistols after he had been brought to this room and now she has them. His expression darkens. He could take them from her. Her build suggests strength despite her meager diet, but he is twice her size in mass.

He contemplates this for a moment. _No._ Something wheedles at his subconscious, snaking its way into his thoughts. There is something… about _her_. His frown deepens. _What is that?_ The instinct to reach for it overwhelms him, but it flits just outside of his limited awareness. He suppresses a frustrated growl and refocuses on the conversation at hand. 

“What is a guest to think when the host has removed his clothes and stolen his weapons?” He tilts his head playfully. 

She scoots away, her finger still on the trigger. “A guest should be wise and thankful that the host has kept him alive for a week.”

“A week?” he sputters, unable to mask his shock.

Rey scoffs. “At the expense of many nights without food. Yes.”

Forgotten emotions inside him stir, but he forces them away. “Where am I?”

She frowns at him for a moment, her eyes distant. Then, it’s gone. “Niima Outpost.”

His lips mirror her frown. She isn’t lying to him. _But…_ He files her curious hesitance away for later. Right now, he has more important questions to ask. “Did another outlander come before me? A tall man. Pale with blue eyes. He would have been wearing a lavish cloak of black and gold.”  

“No.” Rey bites her lip, thinking. “The last time this town saw an outlander was years ago.”

Kylo sighs in disappointment. “Who?”

She doesn’t answer at first. “Me.”

He blinks, suddenly cursing his ignorance. “You’re a Red Witch.”

Rey averts her attention toward the lamp glow, embarrassment coloring her cheeks.

Kylo scrutinizes her. She uses the High Speech and, regardless of her years here, her moorland accent is thick. This is no desert child. And no sworn sister of that ancient sect wears white rags unless… “You’ve been exiled.”

She bites the inside of her cheek, refusing to look in his direction.

Of course she has. Why waste a sister in this place where there is no political power to be gained and the people are empty husks. This land despite all its hunger is a corpse and this girl scavenges for what little food she can earn.

He decides to be blunt. “Why were you banished?”

“None of your business.” Her teeth flash and her eyes cut at him. 

Before he can probe deeper, she snaps to her feet and walks over to the bucket of water, filling a cup and bringing it back to him. He accepts it without a word, watching her as she turns on her heel and disappears from the room, his pistol still in her hand.

Ignoring his irritation, he eases back against the cot, draining the cup in one swig and setting it on the limestone block beside him posing as a nightstand. On it are various other knick knacks, one of them being a miserable doll made out of threadbare burlap and sewn together with human hair. _Her hair._

He takes it into his hands.

The face painted on it appears to be dried ink. He vaguely wonders how she happened upon such a treasure. There are various old tears that have been stitched closed with more of her hair. He grazes them with his fingertips. This doll means very much to her. It carries the most intimate nuances of her scent.

“What are you doing?” Rey’s voice startles him out of his trance. “That belongs to me! I didn’t say you could touch it!”

Kylo cocks an eyebrow. “I could say the same about what’s in your hand, thief.” He indicates to the pistol. “But it is in your nature, I suppose. Scavengers have no basis for even the most rudimentary etiquette.”

Her face reddens, yet she merely bites her tongue and fetches the cup to fill it again. He tilts his head as he watches her. Her lips are pursed when she brings it to him and he takes it, allowing his gloved fingers to brush hers. They stare at one another for ages.

Then, he takes a sip.

Her frown deepens.

He takes another.

And another.

After emptying the cup, he offers it to her and she retrieves it with stiff fingers, returning to the bucket to fill it for herself. Her mouth works thirstily around the rim as she drinks and Kylo’s eyes follow the rogue droplets trickling down her chin. They glitter like diamonds.

“Why didn’t you?” he asks, knowing she wanted to knock the cup from his hands only moments before.

Rey wipes her mouth. “I suppose some scavengers have a _rudimentary_ understanding of etiquette.”

An involuntary smile betrays him and her gaze flickers to it instantly. He hastily chases the expression away, biting down on his tongue. As if breaking a spell, Rey’s eyes harden and she spins on her heel, departing again.

He sighs, his fists relaxing, and focuses his attention on the disheveled scraps of cloth on the floor. It’s where she has slept since he’d taken residence on _her_ bed. Of course it is. Like the doll, the tattered mattress is awash with _her_.

_This is her room._

Something swells in his heart and he closes his eyes, wrapping the sensation in ice, killing it before it can grow. A bizarre hum vibrates along his bones and a faraway scream rips through his mind. A woman’s scream.

-

\--

-

Thunder tears across the sky with a colossal boom and Kylo glances over at Rey who is fiddling with a metal contraption she had stowed away in a little niche behind the cot. He’s thankful to have his shirt again, and washed no less. She used her rationed water to wash _his_ clothes. The previous emotion stirs again, this time not quelled by the ice in his chest. He violently shoves it away.

“It’s only a sandstorm. It will pass.” She says, not looking at him. “I can’t imagine how you’ve survived out in the open desert so long. No one survives a sandstorm without shelter.” At that she does look up, her face cautious.

Kylo regards her with piercing eyes, allowing her a sharper taste of his intensity. “I found shelter when I needed it.”

Rey holds his glare, irritated with his obvious noncompliance. And why shouldn’t he be? The guns glint flirtatiously near her where she sits.

“You spoke of another outlander.” She finally says.

“Yes…” His replies cagily.

“You’re pursuing him.” It isn’t a question.

 _Observant and clever_ , Kylo muses. “Is that what you think?”

She glowers at him. “It’s what I know.”

He’s on his feet in a flash and towering over Rey with two strides. “You should be more careful.”

“Why?” She whispers, shaken but defiant as her hands drift toward one of his pistols. _‘Very clever girl.’_

He’ll realize later that he likes her this way, challenging him with her glistening chin and her smudged nose. Later, but not right now.

“Your cleverness. It should be a knife in the dark not something you flaunt, especially given your station.”

She bolts up, a pistol in hand. “It isn’t wise to insult my station considering I nursed you back from the dead!” she counters vehemently, digging the barrel of the pistol into his chest.

 _Fury_ , he inwardly grins.

“Exactly my point.” He looks down his nose at her. “For all that cleverness, little scavenger, and I’m drinking your water and eating your rations.” The urge to caress her cheek tickles his fingertips, but he refrains, his hand hovering near her face. “Your compassion makes you foolish. You realize this.”

Pain darkens her eyes. “You know nothing about me, gunslinger.”

Kylo unconsciously licks his lips. “We both know you’re more clever than that.” His gaze flits to the doll and back to Rey. “You don’t belong here… and no one is coming for you.”

His assertion is too harsh, too cruel for the kindness she has shown him, but his voice seems not his own, driven by some nameless desire to evoke her emotions, to pry her open. Tears shimmer in her eyes hypnotically and he falls, powerless and starving. How long has it been since he’s looked this deeply into someone’s eyes?

Hers are the color of summer meadows caught fire. Dust and embers. Green. So green.

He can almost see… _the reflection of a child’s weeping face, rippling water, cold red robes of silk—like blood, she thinks—unkind mouths articulating surgical words that cut too deep, disdain and neglect, a girl_ alone _… left wanting._

 _‘I know you’re lonely, Ben, but you have to understand that things are difficult.’_ His mother’s voice invades his thoughts. _‘Please try to understand.’_

_‘Show me, grandfather…’_

_‘Come home.’_

Echoes. Dead voices. All a cacophony of noise. All mingling with—

“Stop!” comes a strangled sob. “Get out of my head!”

Kylo’s vision slowly clears and he finds Rey with her head bowed, the gun dangling at her side, scarcely in her fingers, and her shoulders heaving. His heart pounds like a drum. The air around them moistens with their breath and his mind scrambles to understand. Her memories were open to him. He saw into her.

He wets his lips again, utterly shocked. It’s impossible. Those powers were leached from him years ago. Still, he peeled back the veil of her mind as if her defenses were nothing more than wet paper. Unable to resist he dives in again, heady from the intoxicating familiarity of power. He meets with more resistance now, though he is able to slip through the cracks.

What waits for him this time is emptiness. No memories, no thoughts. Just a vacuum of consciousness. He grimaces angrily and claws deeper, searching for something, anything that will—he abruptly slams into a wall.

And blinks.

A caress of warmth travels along his chest and he blinks again.

“You,” Rey asserts crisply. “You’re afraid that you will never be as strong as Darth Vader.”

_No!_

Kylo rips his hand down viciously and lurches back, nearly tripping over the pail of water. His blood turns to ice and his vision wavers, static filling his ears. The world around him shrinks back to the small room with the dismal ceiling, an uncomfortable cot and a fierce young woman menacing him with those steely eyes of meadow fire.

_How could she know?_

Her chest rises and falls with shivering breaths and her shoulders are squared proudly. He simply gawks at her, his lips working to form words and failing miserably. She surveys him in silence, her blushing mouth torn between a grimace and a smile.

“What was that?” she finally whispers.

He scowls at her accusingly. “You’re a child with the shine.”

Confusion crosses her face. “No. The sisters say only a child of refined blood possesses the shine.”

Kylo snorts. “Sister witches are not gods, scavenger. Some things they cannot see.”

Rey shakes her head, clasping his pistol against her chest. “The Reverend Mother has seen into my gene memories. I am no one.”

“I beg to differ.” He steps close to her again and she regards him warily. “What is the real reason you‘re out here in this withered place? Do not lie, or I’ll know.”

She straightens with renewed defiance. “None of your concern, gunslinger. You learned enough without my expressed permission.”

He tilts his head, glancing from her toes to her eyes again. “Such a shame they never discovered your potential. Controlling it takes practice. Years of it.”

“Who is Darth Vader?”

His playful nature evaporates. “Careful. I doubt you can fire my pistol faster than I can—

“You won’t.” she interrupts him.

“You’re so sure.” He drawls.

“Yes.” She answers smoothly, beginning toward him and relinquishing his weapons. He stares at her for a long cautious moment before taking them. She turns, then, and proceeds to clean up around the room, putting supplies in a pile he hadn’t noticed before. “Who is this outlander and why are you after him? I was taught that gunslingers were only a dying myth, yet here you stand. Who are you?”

“Could your penchant for asking too many questions be the root cause of your expulsion?” Kylo remarks snappishly. “I should think so.”

“Answer me.” Rey demands.

He considers her until she eventually faces him, her lips pressed into a thin line. Their eyes meet and he holds hers, his curiosity getting the better of him. How could she have unearthed his abilities after so long? Snoke had skinned them from his very bones. “Kylo Ren. I’m called Kylo Ren.”

Thunder roars over the sky anew, vibrating the walls.

Rey stares at him, transfixed. Something in her eyes unsettles him, but it’s gone before he can classify it. Her eyes seem to do that a lot.

“I’m coming with you.”

“What?” He gapes at her. “No.”

“Yes.” She grabs a staff leaning against the far wall. “I go with you.”

Kylo’s jaw clenches. “No. I am heading out west.”

Her eyes widen. “Going west is dangerous!”

“West is the way my enemy travels. I will follow him and you will stay here. I’ve no use for a banished Red Witch, or a desert scavenger for that matter.”

Hurt flickers in her gaze, but she is determined. “As you said, I don’t belong here. I can take care of myself. I don’t need you to watch me. I travel with you.”

His patience wears thin. “I take it you will shadow me regardless of my answer.”

Her hands grip on the staff and hope lights her face.

Kylo sighs. “You fall behind in the desert and you’re on your own.”


	5. Sin and Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter Inspiration:** [Dogs of War - Blues Saraceno](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tN875A3Bj8) & [Sometimes Murder is Necessary](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/497858933782283205/)  
>  **Warning(s):** action sequences, fighting, gore, blood, hinted cannibalism, murder  & a touch of Reylo sass  
>  **A/N:** I apologize for any typos or misspellings. This chapter was long and I got tired of looking over it.
> 
> -
> 
>   **PLEASE REMEMBER TO LEAVE KUDOS AND COMMENTS IF YOU LIKE THIS STORY!!!**

“Rey.”

Her limbs are heavy and boneless.

“Rey.” More insistent this time.

The air around her feels material… _liquid_.

“Rey!”

Something jerks at her arm and she’s tumbling. No—she’s falling? Panic grips her chest.

“Too late Rey! Too late!” the voice singsongs.

Wetness laps at her skin and she sucks in a breath, instantly drawing bitter water into her lungs. It tastes like the white sands blown in from past the Sinking Fields. It tastes like…

 _‘The ocean,’_ another voice whispers. A man’s voice.

Wait. Isn’t she still—

“Oh, yer still fallin little dove!” the sing-song voice crows. _Nort._

 But the other voice—

A dark entity coils around her and she screams, or at least tries to. Bubbles dance over her cheeks and her stomach lurches with the feeling one gets when they are suspended above the ground, so sure that any second they will come crashing down.  

 _‘Help me!’_ her mind shrieks. _‘Someone help me, please!’_

The presence around her tightens its hold and she jerks back as she feels the ghostly sensation of fingertips on her face. They trail down to her chin, taking it possessively and tilting her face upward. No other face stares back at her. Only a formless shadow.

 _‘Don’t be afraid.’_ The man’s voice again.

Her body responds unthinkingly, lips opening and hands gripping rough fabric. The stranger’s fingers glide back up her face, a gentle thumb tracing her mouth. Rey searches with her hands, finding the solidness of a broad chest, frayed material—no doubt from long days on a lonely road—and wavy hair.

She pulls her hands back, mindful suddenly that her lungs are not burning from lack of oxygen. Fingertips tease at her ears, testing their shape.

 _Who are you?_ she wonders.

“Dead man!” Nort’s howl startles her and the entity surrounding her trembles with _rage_. “Dead! Dead! Dead!”

The unknown hands cradle her head in a cage of warm bones, quaking around her ears as if trying to block out Nort’s ranting. Rey reaches up, grasping the hands. They’ve a dry, slick texture. _Gloves._

“Yer master done tol me ev’rthing!” Nort exclaims. “I know all!”

Rey inhales the salty water with ease, breathing it like a fish, but when she attempts to speak, her words are only a gurgled moan of sound. The gloved hands pull her close, surrounding her with the smell of musk and smoke. She inhales it thirstily and it works down into her lungs at the pace of winter, dripping like fire into her veins.

But all too soon the heat fades and she feels the dark presence writhe with alarm. Her tongue refuses to work as her hands drop away, dead weights, and there is an audible snarl.

“Rey!” Nort cackles. “You har me now!”

The world abruptly spins out of control and her heart gets lost along the way, twisting free of her ribcage and hurling into the void. Alien claws creep up her ankles along her legs until they reach her spine. Then pain, _agonizing_ pain. She opens her mouth, though no sound leaves her throat.  

Gloved hands grasp at her face, holding desperately to her, and she realizes that she is being pulled, bizarre poisonous hooks dragging her to the gaping jaws of an awaiting mouth. A mouth uttering low silken words of promise.

_Ugly promise._

Why does she suddenly feel saturated in filth? As if touched by a curse.

Nort is close now, his stench permeating the air. “He plant’d the seeds, Rey! You har ‘im?”

A thought escapes her mind. _Make him stop. Please, make him stop._

The dark presence sheltering her growls low. Then, a sickening crack, a gurgle. Then nothing.

Rey’s body vibrates with an echo of familiar energy, _his_ energy. It draws her closer to him and the shadow takes on a whisper of form, lips drawn down in a possessive growl and a nose defining a long face.

This feeling… is so eerily familiar.

 _‘I feel it too.’_ He whispers.

“Ben.” She breathes aloud. “Ben…”

Rey bolts upright on the floor, her heart hammering in her chest and her legs shaking away the mess of drab sheets. It takes her a long time to steady her breathing, a cool sheen of sweat clinging to her body, but the comforting thunder of her heartbeat is enough to center her back in the waking world and she sighs heavily.

The elements of the nightmare fade swiftly, though the fear she feels hasn’t haunted her in many long years. She looks up at the ceiling and is struck by a sadness as her eyes follow the lazy dance of shadows cast from the lamp glow. They form a shape, she thinks, but not a definite one.

Her gaze drifts over to Kylo Ren lying on his back with his hands folded over his chest, eyes closed and lips parted. His breaths are steady and deep. She watches him for a time.

_Kylo Ren._

Rey knows of the name. Every daughter who becomes a full-fledged Sister of the guild is taught the story of this mysterious creature who nearly destroyed everything the Sisterhood has worked for. To them Kylo Ren was not a man, only a monster, only a name. Sisters refused to even utter it, the name itself a curse.

Rey had asked to be told the old story once and in return she received ten lashings.  

Wasn’t it lashing scars she found on his body, too? So many she couldn’t count, scars atop older scars. What happened to him? Why would any man desire to call himself by this cursed name? She bites her lower lip, unsure of what to think of him, or why she had volunteered to travel with him so eagerly.

 _Foolish_ , she mutters inwardly. Just the same, she isn’t backing down from her decision. But is she ready to leave? Hesitation flickers in her chest. The forlorn doll on her nightstand calls to her and the hesitation grows to a burning flame.

She can’t stay here forever. _She won’t._ Her family could be out there somewhere. She has to know where she came from, who she was— _is_.

Getting to her feet, she quietly pads over and dips her a cup of water, using some of it to rinse her face and drinking the rest. She combs her fingers through her tangled hair and fashions it quickly in her three-bun style and departs for the Sinking Fields, unaware of a pair of somber eyes watching her leave.

 

-

\--

-

 

The next day is sweltering, this cycle’s wild summer hotter than any Rey has ever experienced. If there was any moisture in the town at all, it left with the sun’s rise. Rey shoulders her staff as the townspeople meander about the remaining tasks of their day. Even this late in the noon the growing shadows give no comfort.

A crack of sound suddenly captures Rey’s attention and she glances at Plutt’s leaning storage hut. Her eyes fall on a crumpled figure at Plutt’s feet, a quiet skeleton of a boy whose parents had traded him to Plutt for six months’ worth of rations. They died before they could finish the rations, taken by sandstorm almost three cycles ago.

Rey watches with detached sympathy. Aside from her, he is the only other youth in the town. There is no such thing as children in this place and children who do happen to find their wayward souls trapped here grow ancient in a breath.

She can’t remember his name, but she does remember the time he stole her scavenged parts and took them to Plutt. Sympathy or not, she cannot afford to lose like that again.

Rey looks back over at the temple, the rotting steeple glinting faintly, still clinging to some semblance of a world before. The crone is inside, but so far she has done her best to avoid Kylo entirely. This morning, she had greeted Rey with a curt warning.

“Tell tha’ gunslinger we don’t take in no stray wolves. We offer shelter, but our hospitality has limits. He _will_ be off soon.”

Rey had simply nodded, concealing her excitement behind flat eyes. Tonight they will leave and she escapes this barren place forever. What lies ahead can only take her forwards not backwards. Doubt flickers in her chest again, but she quells it. She will not regret this decision.

One way or another, she will find her family.

Kylo himself has recovered nicely in the last three days following their pact. Their interaction since then has been scant words, but he’s warmed to her at least _a little_. He did refuse food last night and a part of her wonders if he feels guilty because she has to share her rations with him, or maybe he is simply too proud to receive something given to him.

 _Regardless,_ she muses, _he is my means of getting free._

She shivers at the prospect. Freedom—something she desires as equally as warmth and belonging. But if she had to choose…

 _‘You don’t belong here… and no one is coming for you.’_ His words ring out in her head.

No one has ever told her the truth, not like that. Despite the sharpness, the deliberate intention to inflict pain, his words also inflicted purpose in her. Dangerous purpose.

For the last two days, Rey has secretly been sneaking supplies from Plutt’s storage as well as the caches hidden away by the crone behind one of the chapel walls. Dehydrated vegetables, flat, hardened slices of bread and thin crackers. She’s even found two spare silver coins. Kylo had several gold coins in his purse he carries.

They will embark at night, deep into the moon’s rise. The hazy mountain horizon beckons her from the west, jagged teeth at the end of the world. Her world. But there is something beyond, something grander.

She smiles distantly. The Sisterhood was a microcosm where her youth blossomed into doubt and this desert town is the vacuum of nonexistence shackling her to the death she sees grinning back from the cracks, and crevices of that doubt.

If she stayed she would rot here, supple skin stretching over brittle bones until nothing remained. She would die here alone, the crone’s spittle dousing her boots and the stink of devil grass burning her nostrils.

The dangerous purpose flared in her again and she straightened _. No holding back anymore. No fear._

The skeleton boy across the square cries out as he suffers another blow from the whip. She reacts instinctively, jerking her gaze away with a churning stomach. That whip has given her a scar or two as well, but why interfere? The boy has stolen her scavenged parts more than once and she had to go hungry those nights.

Those were long nights.

Still her heart twists with every snap of the whip. She should do something. She cannot blame the boy entirely for his actions against her. He was hungry and alone.

Suddenly, the boy buckles to his knees and with five dusty coughs he is gone. Rey’s heart sinks as she watches with a hollow shock, pain thumping emptily in her chest. He was so dry even his blood was sand. The crimson smear on his mouth does not shimmer and Plutt walks away without a backwards glance.

Guilt tugs at her heart and she swallows. She could have remedied this, somehow. He is dead and she simply stood there. The pain trickles deeper into her, branding her with this moment. It etches into her eyelids, lingering like a blinding flash in the darkness.  

She could have tried. She _should_ have.

“Yer fate’s worse, little dove.” Nort’s voice startles her out of her trance and she quickly makes her way toward the chapel, refusing to look at him.

Pieces of her dream seep up from the caverns of her subconscious, but they are evanescent voices and cool shadows. All bleeding vibrant ink on the parchment of memory.

“Don’t worry. Death don’t leave no one behind!”

Rey hurries along the boardwalk and curls her hand around one of the door handles.

“The corpse lights.” His eerie whisper reaches her from across the way, halting her. “Follow the light.”

Something triggers in her mind. A dream? A memory? _A message._ Pale knotted skin, burning eyes and a lipless mouth. Words that slither into her thoughts like smoke, but what are the words? Her mind strains.

She is so caught up in her thoughts that she doesn’t see the door swinging open and it instantly connects with her face. She stumbles back, grabbing at her nose as a swelling heat spreads through her cheeks.

“You should be tendin’ the outlander!” comes a hateful crack, the crone’s one good eye rolling onto her. The other weeps morbid tears of puss.

Rey feels the hot dribble of blood touch her lip and she licks it away.

The crone grimaces distastefully. “Wher’ you been?”

Bile sizzles at the back of her throat and she swallows it down, her face neutral, her eyes blank. “I am sorry, matron. Plutt—my master—

A wrinkled hands shoots out for Rey’s cheek and she stops it, her fingers curling like a vice around the frail wrist. The air between them stills and they stare at one another wide-eyed. Rey spots a touch of dread in the old hag’s eyes and it summons a delicious sensation of triumph so powerful that Rey it takes all her willpower not to crush the bone.

She can. By the gods, she can shatter it.

Fear glosses over the woman’s eyes, suffusing and infecting every contour of her face and Rey’s lips twitch with an animal grimace. After a few more tense seconds, the crone rips her hand free and Rey allows it.

“Don’t ferget yer place, feral curse!” she hacks spittle at Rey’s boots, dowsing them with yellow mucus. “Yer no one. Not even the Red Sisters wanted you!”

With that the crone storms away and Rey grinds her teeth, trying with everything she has to keep her anger in check. Then, something slips across her awareness, a furtive smile, a touch of satisfaction. She knows the intrusion and storms through the temple doors to her room.

Kylo is seated near where she sleeps on the floor, his legs crossed, his back straight and his arms resting over his knees. Closed or not, his eyes move hungrily behind his eyelids. Scowling at him, she creeps into the room, unable to shake the abrupt feeling that she is intruding on her own dwelling.  

His breath deepens and she is drawn to his nude chest. She finds herself embarrassed, more from the impropriety of the situation than actually seeing his bare skin again… and all those scars. They spider along the slope and flow of his muscles like a hideous map of his world, his past and a harbinger of his future.

The tone of his flesh has improved immensely over the past two weeks and his bones are no longer angular protrusions under his flesh. She’s thankful for that, more because it was such a pitiful sight. She has never liked pitiful things. They make her heart ache.

He’s also taken the liberty of shaving his beard. Something else she is thankful for. The curious constellations of beauty marks and moles now fully exposed seem to revive a youthfulness in him.  

She drags her eyes away from them to the neat grouping of his belongings on the floor beside him. Pistols, bullets, an oiling rag and various other things. All within arm’s reach. The pistols glint at her and a slow deliberate exhale draws her attention back to his face.   

His eyes are still closed and a little smirk is tickling the corners of his mouth. “Come.” He whispers.

The air around her seems to crackle and she is thrust back into memories when the fireflies danced at her window and the shy twinkle of beads proceeded sisters moving quickly along the castle halls, faces above her own. He is watching her with closed eyelids, a seductive hum echoing in her ears.

 _He is doing that._ She regards him warily, hands fidgeting at the hem of her shirt.

He tilts his head, long raven tendrils brushing his nose. His silence carries the unspoken request, uttered again from parted lips in taking breath and a shock of tongue rolling over teeth. She inches closer, but hovers just out of reach, her own tongue sweeping over desert cracked lips.

His brows furrow and a huff betrays his annoyance. Nothing more.

She glances beyond him at the inconspicuous pile of supplies hidden beneath various rags of clothing. All the belongings she owns, all except the few vestiges of her childhood on her nightstand. It tempts her heart to throb painfully. She can’t leave all of it behind.  _Not everything._ Kylo has not touched her doll since the day his fever broke and she has paid the same courtesy to him and his effects.   

“Scavenger.” Kylo speaks tersely, his tone edged with impatience.  

Rey jerks his head in his direction and finds his gaze on her, dusk and embers. A nighttime fire beneath a cruel blanket of stars. _He is cold yet he burns_ , she muses. His shoulders stiffen, an insignificant movement she easily could have missed had she not been staring at his mouth.

He motions for her to sit before him, his jaw rigid.

“I know how to meditate.” She snaps bitterly as she approaches. _A half lie._    

His lashes drag down then up as he scrutinizes her. “It is almost time. Now sit.”

 

-

\--

-

 

When she looks back on this night, she’ll never forget how everything happens in an instantaneous sort of frenzy. How the townsfolk suddenly mobilize like a swarm of locusts, teeth gnashing and eyes all dull sheen. She’ll also remember the thick silence before it.

Rey grips tightly at her staff, her pack of stolen rations slung over her shoulder. Kylo carries a second pack, much heavier than Rey’s. His pistols are drawn, catching the scant moonlight through the dusty chapel windows.

At the opposite end of the structure a snoring crone and a scornful master sleep. Plutt hates the matron as easily as she does him, but a cool room away from the sand and the heat is a rare thing. The truth is the crone probably doesn’t believe in Kylo Ren’s authenticity as a gunslinger, but superstition demands one not turn away a knight of the Ancient Code.

Kylo’s hand abruptly shoots up, halting her. His shoulders tense and he bows forward, curling his body beneath one of the pews. Rey follows suit, her heart in her throat and her breath trapped behind clenched teeth.

Minutes crawl by as the darkness circling them grows thick and Rey feels a brush of Kylo’s mental fingers. She attempts to block him at first, but a quick glance from him over his shoulder changes her mind.

 _‘Breathe.’_ He whispers in her thoughts. _‘Steady.’_

During their meditation, he told her that she will have to trust him, not entirely but enough. _What exactly is enough?_ She swallows, disliking the invasive sensation of him expanding her awareness. She can almost taste his energy. The feeling is curiously provocative and she knows he can hear her intrigue of it.

She shakes her head, a blush coloring her cheeks.

“Something is wrong.” He murmurs aloud, bringing her back to the situation.

Then she senses it, an odd space of emptiness in the low buzz of the night. “Yes.” She agrees, her fingers turning bone-white around the staff.

The dark pits of Kylo’s eyes are only humanized by the thin shimmer of moonlight on his pupils. “We—

A sudden crash lodges Rey’s heart in her throat and Kylo moves so swiftly that she loses him in the shadow. A hand grabs her and yanks her into the shadows seconds later and she muffles a scream at the biting command from Kylo to remain silent. Anger follows and she rips her hand free of his grip, glaring at what she hopes is his face.

Hurried footfalls slap the weathered limestone and a torch lamp cuts a shaft of light through the nave along the pews. Plutt’s hulking figure appears first ahead of the crone, but it’s their expressions, not the rusty knives in their clutches, that frighten Rey.

It is purely animal, mouths hanging ajar with ribbons of saliva and nostrils flaring. Their eyes seem to reflect _all_ of the firelight. _Like a rabid animal._ And these rabid animals are blocking their path.

A soft growl resonates beside her and she glances at Kylo. His posture leans and crouches low, guns at the ready in his hands. She catches a glint of his teeth. _Savage_ , she muses. He is the shadow lion from her youth brought in twisted cages to the Sisterhood, all bared teeth and powerful muscles hidden beneath endless mane. 

A _pet_ for the Reverend Mother. A savage beast.

Another crash, this time the entrance at their rear. The doors tremble as they slam open, shattering and splintering the glass windows. Chanting hisses follow and all the blood drains from Rey’s face as Nort’s knowing gaze find hers. He stands at the front of the crowd grinning that death-sickle grin. All other eyes find them at once and they move as one.

“I done warn’d ya Rey!” Nort cackles.

Without warning gunfire explodes beside her and she nearly drops her staff to cover her ears, the pressure of the sound ravaging her skull. It is a rapid and vicious sound, ringing without end.

The rapid succession of the sound draws her attention to Kylo and she watches him, hypnotized by the efficiency of his hands, his eyes, his movements. He empties his chambers with inhuman speed and reloads, ready to fire again before her eyes can blink. Bodies collapse as gore decorates the walls and Rey is sickened.

 “You shoulda known better, gunslinger!” Nort howls. “Yer playin’ his game!”

One villager approaches at their flank and Rey reacts on instinct, slicing the staff through the air and taking out the woman’s jaw. Her body hits the ground, but she is on her feet again, gurgling and swinging her weapon. A piece of old plywood with nails. Rey ducks just in time to feel one of the nails catch in her hair and she hollers as she is ripped off her feet, the sheer strength of the gaunt woman terrifying her.

Her body hits a pew, sending a wave of agony up from her waist. If she survives, that will to leave a nasty bruise.

The woman is on her instantly, but Rey is faster this time, rolling along the pew, missing the woman’s strike and shoving herself backward while alternating her staff. It spins deftly and hits the woman in the temple. She drops to the ground with a soft exhale.

_She’s dead. Dead. I’ve just—_

Meaty hands tear her backwards and another pair snatch her staff. She wiggles and kicks, her elbows connecting with a swollen belly. Plutt’s stink confines her and she refuses to breathe. The crone appears a moment later with Rey’s staff in her hands and Rey groans futilely.

Old flesh sags around a gaping maw of rotted teeth and horrifying clarity dawns on Rey. Plutt’s tongue suddenly glides along her cheek and she growls, revolted.

They are rabid, rabid with _hunger_.

Nort winks at her from across the way as Kylo takes out more of the townsfolk, his hazy thoughts lost to her.

_Why is Nort not like the rest of them? Why aren’t I?_

An image surfaces in her mind. Glacial irises, a wash of gold and long-nailed fingers ghosting over her cheeks. _‘You are to be his Ten of Swords, little dove.’_  

The world stills around her and she knows, knows deep down in her gut. It was he who touched this town with hunger, this man with the winter eyes. All for the gunslinger. All for Kylo Ren.

“He got a message fer you, gunslinger!” Nort calls over the noise.

Saliva drips onto her collarbone refocusing Rey on her captors. The crone hisses incoherently at her as Plutt plants his mouth on her neck, teeth threatening to damage her. Twisting her hips, Rey angles her body in his arms so that her knee connects with his groin. He moans and crumples to his knees.

She has little time to pause as something whistles through the air at her ear. She evades it, twirling to see the crone snapping her jaws and aiming the staff at her again, but before the crone can strike a blast of gunfire destroys half of her skull. Rey gawks in disbelief as brain matter drips down her neck and the crone falls.

Plutt bellows angrily behind Rey and rushes her. Rey aims for his nose, the impact sending blood into his animal-shine eyes, but with a solid swipe of his hand, her weapon goes flying.

“He tol’ me ‘imself!” Nort continues. “Whispered it to me in the dark he did! Brought me back!”

 _Nort!_ Rey suddenly screams in her mind. _I remember!_ He had died and come back, because _another_ outlander bewitched him with the kiss of the unholy life. _He is a revenant!_

She scrambles as Plutt advances on her. “Kylo! Nort is—

But he already knows, shearing through the remaining townsfolk with his dwindling bullets.

Rey seizes her staff, though as she turns Plutt punches her in the gut, effectively knocking the wind out of her. She hobbles back to regain her bearings and Plutt closes the distance, hands clenching and unclenching. She raises her staff, but a strong arm thrusts her back behind a broad shadow. Kylo fires smoothly, the recoil snapping his hand and his bullet piercing Plutt’s left eye.

Plutt drops.

“Wasteful gunslinger.” Nort says lowly.

With a wave of Nort’s hand all the previously dead townspeople rise. Rey stares in horrified awe. They move jerkily, the animal-shine of their eyes melted into something far worse. She gulps queasily at the air, unable to process what is happening around her.

Kylo’s jerks her roughly with him. _‘Nothing we can do! Run!’_ He leads them blindly down the corridor to the town well, the hissing abomination hot on their heels.

Air grates at her lungs as she attempts to keep Kylo’s pace, his legs and stride much longer than her own. They stumble down the steps, her ankle turning under her weight and she grits her teeth. The darkness is complete in this underground without torchlight and another certainty digs at her.

 _We cannot keep this up forever and they will never stop._ She has to do something.

They pass the mouth of the well. With adrenaline humming loud in her veins, she forcefully stops and turns to face them. They flood the cavern, their golden light casting ugly black shadows along the walls. She has to trust that she can do… _whatever it is_ she intends to do. Doubt flares in her chest, but she quells it.

 _I can do this_ , she repeats over and over to herself.  

A bizarre flux of energy tickles her fingertips and she raises her hand on instinct. She pushes, her face pinching in concentration. Nothing happens. They are closer now, swaying patiently. She tries again and the cave walls tremor.

Kylo shouts from behind her, but she ignores him.

Hisses and gurgles drown her ears as their stink encompasses her, and she pushes one final time. Pain explodes behind her eyes as a rolling moan deep within the rock vibrates her bones and the sky is falling. Sickening cracks and fleshy thuds are muted beneath heavy boulders as the ceiling collapses.

Then silence.

Her muscles tremble. Something warm trickles from her nose.

A voice whispers from behind her and she is falling, too.

But she never hits the ground.

Before sleep takes her, she smells the musk of male skin and feels the warm thump of a heartbeat against her ear.


	6. Corpse Lights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter Inspiration:** [The Master of Death - Peter Gundry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL1LBle8rTI) & [Broken Scion Aesthetics](https://www.pinterest.com/ahellraiser/broken-scion-aesthetics/)  
>  **Warning(s):** action sequences, fighting, gore, blood  & Kylo possessiveness  
>  **A/N:** This chapter was massive. x_x This project won't be more than 20 chapters. Hopefully less. I've got some new Reylo projects in the works, but I won't be posting them until I finish this one. Thanks for your support!  
>   
>  -
> 
> **PLEASE REMEMBER TO LEAVE KUDOS AND COMMENTS IF YOU LIKE THIS STORY!!!**

-

\--

Into the Bowels of Abaddon

\--

-

Kylo walks blindly in the Cimmerian caverns and uneven terrain, his boots sloshing through water and his breathes echoing into the darkness. Following the well that had sustained Niima Outpost, water seeped up through the rock creating a wide shallow stream further down into the cave.

He had momentarily marveled at the amount of fresh drinkable water. The books his mother gifted him in his youth spoke of enormous cavities in the earth that were documented to run several hundred kilometers in diameter, some described as oceans.

His boots slip over wet stones as the angle of the cave drops. It’s been a steady decline since the undercroft of the chapel, now a tomb for all its residents, young and old. The cave ceiling on the other hand has thankfully been at a steady incline. So many eons ago, the amount of water that cut this subterrane must have been incomprehensible.

Sighing with exhaustion, he steadies himself and the unconscious form in his arms. Rey’s breath caresses his neck as he carefully repositions her body, both his and her packs swinging like pendulums over his opposite shoulder and her staff chaffing at his back. His clothes are tattered. Perhaps, if they make it out of here and across the remaining desert, he can barter for better garments.

_If…_

The Dark Tower materializes out of the blackness, a dim mirage of prophecy and dread. Spiraling stairs, countless rooms, the levels incomprehensible and the hungry god of those halls waiting, calling.  Kylo learned long ago that Snoke enjoys the freedom of lidless eyes and busy feet. Whether a god in those serpentine corridors or a shadow at his back, Snoke is ubiquitous.

 _All hail the Supreme Leader. All hail the ancient cunt who tricked another more stupid cunt into betraying his family._ Kylo swallows back angry bile as a truth he has actively avoided permeates his mind. He misses them, all of them, especially—

_‘Ben…’_

Her voice is honest, always honest. It was the first thing he absorbed from her as she held him to her breast, feeding him with a quiet smile on her face. If for no one else, her son is awarded only truth from her. Nothing less.

 _‘You’ve got her eyes, kid.’_ A rough hand tousled his child hair and an easygoing laugh vaguely concealed the trepidation beneath. _‘I’ll be back soon. Promise.’_

 _Liar._ Kylo snarls.

Not that Han cared about what his son wanted. Not that he understood how his own son felt. Ben Solo was a troubled boy with troubled thoughts and anger was only the beginning. Kylo did not lie when he told Han that his son was gone the Night of Tears. That is as true now as it was then.

Ben Solo is dead. He died the moment he felt his mother’s heart break, the moment his father’s blood warmed his hands and his uncle’s cry ripped across time and space.

It feels like an eternity ago.

His focus settles on Rey again as her body suffuses him with heat. She stinks of sweat and the grime of filth, but she is a woman. He tilts his head to inhale her scent more properly. The feminine hint of her resonates all the more vigorously through the ether, provocative and tempting. He inhales her again.

Feral sunlight. That lively meadow caught fire.

_Empyrean._

Luke’s voice from one of his teachings enters Kylo’s thoughts. _‘Fire is pure, Ben, but too much can consume all surrounding life. From the ashes new growth will come, but the damage can linger. In the end, fire must find balance. You will find it, too, Ben.’_

Rey groans restlessly, attempting to curl deeper into his arms and he stiffens as her fingers crawl up around his neck. The familiar ache of such intimacy addles his mind and he indulges it, licking unconsciously at his lips.

After Rey’s display of power the only cognizant thought in his mind had been to escape from the falling debris. The light of the torches had gone out instantly with the last of the villagers squealing like a wounded swine and he rushed to Rey without regard, catching her in his arms.  

In that moment, he had felt her. _Gods!_ He had felt _all_ of her. The thorough satisfaction as the energy burned at her fingertips, the trembling rise and fall of her chest, the cool aftermath of numbness as the world slipped out from under her and the _relief_ as she inhaled his skin.

It only occurs to him now that he still carries her, depleting his energy unnecessarily for someone other than himself. A girl who should not matter, yet a girl linked to him nonetheless. _And her power._

A steady thrum echoes over his nerve endings and he can almost see the color of her heartbeat. Almost but not quite. It’s been years, so many his memory no longer serves him. The ache of that emptiness suddenly being filled, his mind’s Eye blown wide with pure awareness—it feels _new_ , new and wonderful and unsettling. 

Kylo delights in the sensation, angling his chin until it brushes her hair and pressing her hard against him. The satisfied hum that leaves her lips feeds an ugly creature in his chest. _Possessiveness._ If he is honest with himself, he has entertained this emotion for days, not hours.

And the intensity of it has yet to wane down here in the gloom.

He attempts to project his mind outward sensing signs of life, though they are small, dark dwelling creatures. They listen cautiously to his shuffling approach and wedge themselves more snugly into their crevices. The reach is further limited by Rey’s lack of awareness to the waking world. Her distant murmurings echo to him.

_Dreams. Nightmares._

He needs to rest, too, the wary reality of his journey throbbing down to his bones and his stomach churning with hunger, but the idea of lingering in this forgotten place for longer than necessary is infinitely more unpleasant. Down here, the world can get turned backwards, entangling you as the world above moves on.

Punctuating his exhaustion, his boot slips and he stumbles forward, water soaking him to his shins and the two packs swinging like pendulums over his shoulder. He angles his body to keep balance, cursing all the while. Rey stirs in his arms, her waking groan vibrating against his collar bone and her fingers tightening around his neck. She inhales deeply, nuzzling and mumbling, pulling herself close until her nose brushes his cheek.

He stands in shocked silence, Rey still groggily breathing him in. The sound that comes from her lips is serene and content. She likes this feeling, he perceives. She likes being close to someone, the sensation and warmth of their arms around her. _Closeness._ Through the ether he can hear her half coherent thoughts.

_So warm. I don’t want to be alone. Always alone. But it’s warm here._

The ache of abandonment infects him and he grits his teeth. “Wake up, scavenger.”

Her body goes rigid and, after a long pause, she asks. “Where are we?”

He carefully lets her down and she startles as her boots touch the water, angling into him. Realizing her mistake, she releases his neck instantly and drops her hands, taking a much needed step away. The darkness around them grows in their silence.

“Kylo?” she whispers.

He tests her thought barriers and is not surprised to find them impenetrable now that she’s awake. “Underground.”

She exhales a shiver, bereft of his warmth. “We’re lost.”

He almost chuckles at her candor. “Have an eye for detail do you?”

“Eyes will do us no good down here.” Rey’s low voice grates with sleep. He rather likes it. “I am… sorry.” She finally murmurs, shyness diminishing the usual vigor of her tone. “It won’t happen again.”

He frowns before understanding dawns on him. “You exerted yourself beyond your physical capacity. Your body had to recuperate. You couldn’t have known this and the situation was dire.” His reply is robotic but honest and its stiffness bleeds into his muscles, making him all the more uncomfortable in her presence.

Carrying her wasn’t necessary, shine or not. He must be forthright with himself, but not yet. Once they escape from this place, then those developing truths can be addressed, whatever they may be. In the meantime, he seals all of it away.

“What happened?” Rey inquires, her voice moving as she tests her surroundings.

He finds her arm, halting her, and gives her the staff. “You tell me.”

She takes it awkwardly. “I… I don’t know.”

She’s lying; at least, partially. He doubts she even realizes it. Her thoughts hum to him from between the cracks, but they are disjointed. A flash of fire, dancing flames, rippling water—a reflection—and a smoky whisper that chills his blood, icing his veins over with rage.

_Snoke._

She senses the abrupt shift in his demeanor and he hears the slosh of water as she recoils, her fingers painfully gripping at her weapon. He reaches for it, instantly pressing it to her chest and backing her into the cave wall, their feet catching on jagged rocks. She cries out as sharp rocks stab at her back.

His breath is ragged, unchecked. “When did he come?”

“I don’t know.” She declares crossly. “Time works strangely here.”

 _Truth_ , he muses.

“He brought Nort back and…” her voice drops to a tremble. “He made us forget.”

_Still truth._

He attempts to brush past her defenses, but she ousts him with a violent snarl, using all the energy she can muster. “Don’t!”

“You’re weakened.” He observes. “If I desired to pull the information I wanted from you now, you couldn’t resist me again.”

She doesn’t retort. Only her inhalation gives her away, a shivering intake of cold air. Kylo removes his hand and Rey’s body makes contact with his as she avoids the wall. Her weapon lies at a dangerous angle between his legs. She wants him to act, he smiles. One move and her upward stroke will have him on his knees.

“I’m not surprised the Sisterhood banished you.” He whispers, leaning close to her ear. Wisps of her hair tickle his lips. “They resent any lowborn with such sheer audacity.”

Her face turns, his lips grazing her cheek as he steps back, and the staff quakes in her grip. He’d given her a compliment. A compliment laced with acidic condescension, but a compliment nevertheless. Her confusion blossoms in the dark as effortlessly as the blush reddening her cheeks. He wishes he could see it.

“You are dangerous.” his smile betrays hunger in his words. “All those scratches on the wall by your cot in that dismal room. Counting the days.”

Her emotions flare wildly and he drinks them in: indignation, longing, solitude and pleasure. She has never received a compliment before, especially one so _personal_. Kylo shuts his eyes, basking in her.  

_Her powers are growing… and quickly._

“I can show you how to harness it.” He whispers, his tone mildly beseeching. “How to control it. I can teach you.”

A shuffle of movement. A softening through the ether. “My skull feels like it’s splitting apart.” She admits with a huff.

“It will pass.” He replies. “Your powers are raw. I would suggest not doing that again for now.”

-

\--

-

The progress is faster now that he doesn’t have to carry Rey, but only marginally. Rey seems less adversarial towards him utilizing her powers, as well. That or she simply understands the necessity of the situation. 

He can sense a massive open space in the cavern ahead and something unpleasant deep at its heart. He knows the old signature intimately, a primordial horror from before the Tower. He knows its teeth, its claws and its voracity. He learned of these things in the time Snoke paid to mold him, etching a map of lasting agony into his skin.

 _Snoke always did enjoy a good show._ Kylo intones.

Rey assimilates the dreadful images from his mind before he can stop her and fear builds in her chest, underscoring the unease that ripples between them. Questions flutter around her, but their ethereal shapes disappear before he can grasp at them and he does his best to stifle his agitation. If only he were stronger he could, but she is concealing her more private thoughts in a place he cannot reach.

A lonely howl echoes ahead of them and both freeze, Rey’s shoulder pressing into his arm.

Seconds tick by.

Another howl, this one deeper and more mournful.

“The wind.” Kylo realizes faintly.

Rey’s shoulder brushes his arm again. “Only the wind?”

He nods. “For now.” Where there is wind, there is sky, stars, a moon. _Light._

Leia used to sing to him as a child, rocking him beneath those sharp, cold diamonds above. He can still sing the lullaby she hummed to him, every word, pronouncing every syllable as she did. _Does she still sing_ , he wonders. An ache fills Kylo’s chest and he forces it back down into the barren cracks of his soul.   

That life is long buried, an ancient relic of Ben Solo. All that is left now is Kylo Ren, a revolting Judas with but one purpose. One more life to take. Then, it’s the dust and the bones for him, too.

Still, the yearning wheedles at him, breeding seductive and delightful images of a mother’s weeping face despite a son’s every offense, the blood of a father branded into his hands, the betrayal of an uncle breaking his shoulders.  

Rey’s curiosity prickles at the edge of his mind again and he glares in her direction. “What? Ask it!” his hiss cuts like a knife.

A soft sigh. “You call yourself Kylo Ren.” She pauses and he feels her turn to face him. “Why would you choose such a name?”

He is struck by the question and speaks frankly. “Because I am not my father’s son.”

“Did you kill your father, too?”

His hands ball into fists. “What business is it of yours, scavenger?”

She doesn’t shy away, her body heat invading his space. “It’s not.”

He opens his mouth, ready to deliver a choice reply of frigidity and sarcasm, but a lamenting moan kills the words in his throat. Rey turns, her presence stiffening, muscles coiling, ready to spring. _But where?_ The darkness suffocates any possible escape. Kylo’s fingers graze his pistols, jaw clenching.

It comes again, forming a name. “Rey!”

A chill walks down his spine and he feels Rey’s own reaction, her hair standing on end and her ears pricking at the call. The sound of the water at their feet diminishes as the echoing of the quiet grows, drawing his thoughts the way salt draws infection from a wound. He feels overly exposed and loud. Rey takes a hesitant step back, her silhouette moving just below his line of sight as her back brushes against him.

Realization slams into him. _Moonlight_. It is faint, but he can see.

 _‘Something ahead,’_ Rey’s mind whispers.

Before he can utter a word, she bolts. “Wait!” he yells.

She ignores him and disappears around a corner several paces ahead, sloshing recklessly through the water. He rounds the bend only a second later, arms pumping and boots kicking waves in front of him. The faint light grants just enough to define sharp, dangerous edges, but no more.

“Scavenger!” He snarls.

Something dances curiously in front of him, though it’s gone before he can get a proper look. Rey’s outline disappears with it and he shouts at her through the ether. Her thoughts are ahead of them, centered on something moving, luring her faster away from him. His boot snares on a protruding rock and he stumbles, catching himself from falling and using the momentum to swing around another corner.

The sound hits him first, a rushing, clashing beat of falling water. Then, his eyes distinguish Rey’s motionless figure in front of him. He hits her before he can stop himself and he angles back, gripping her waist to keep them upright. Her hands seize his arms and the whole of her body flattens against him.

Below them a vast precipice stares back. Empty blackness. Death.  

 “Do not do that again.” He growls into her ear.

“The corpse lights.” She murmurs, mesmerized. “Follow the corpse lights.”

 _Corpse lights?_ His grip tightens around her waist. He knows them as dead lights. A vicious form of unhallowed trickery used to seduce unlucky travelers to their deaths. At least, that’s the legend. Dread builds in his gut.

She turns in his arms and he is brought back to the warmth of her skin through her clothes. The low light illuminates the smooth definition of her profile in soft shades of blue and his heart swells with the weight of _that_ emotion again. It infects his nerve endings with a delicious spark of heat and he inhales unsteadily.

 _Mine_ , a distant voice echoes. His voice, but not a thought. Perhaps, a dream? A memory? His mouth parts and he can taste the moisture in the air livened by her scent.  “Who are you?” His tone scarcely above a whisper.

Her lashes flicker and her teeth worry over her lower lip. The air resonates around them, crackling with unseen energy, and Kylo hastily drops his hands, allowing distance between them and urging her away from the edge.

She averts her gaze and steps passed him. “The corpse lights. We should follow them before the creature down here wakes.”

Kylo glances at her profile, less defined now that she faces away from the moonlight. “You’re certain of these lights?”

“No.” she replies bluntly. “But they are the only way.”

She’s right. He can sense it, as a thirsting animal can sense starving monsters lurking in the river. They’ve no other option.

To their right, the edge hugging the east wall slopes downward where Kylo notices the eroded but distinct shape of man-made steps. Above them, the cave ceiling opens in a vast fissure that reveals a lopsided heart of the night sky and the bone moon smiles down at him with an eyeless grin.

The immensity of the chamber leaves both of them speechless. A grand center pillar reaches up to the stars, crumbling gargoyles and weathered cracks lining the spiral stairs that coil upward with it. Moss and dribbling water erode away at what appears to be ancient cuneiform, but the shapes are unfamiliar to Kylo. Shadows mask the rest of the pillar in total blackness along with all that lies behind it.

One thing he does know: this pillar is a representation, however rudimentary, of the Dark Tower. Whoever this dead civilization had been, they worshiped the old ways, the Tower, its grand design, but most of all its purpose.

Rey follows the steps down the east wall with Kylo at her side, her staff readily in her hand. He glances at her furtively with hooded eyes, studying her movements. She is naïve and afraid, but strong. He must admit that it isn’t difficult to develop a human attachment towards such a person. He drags his eyes from her and focuses in front of them.

People like Rey are a blinding distraction, a glaring beacon in the starless eternity.

Suddenly, three ghostly orbs of light flare ahead of them and Rey tears off in pursuit, not bothering to wait for him, but he keeps her pace this time, leaping over dangerous holes eaten into the bedrock. The orbs are the ghoulish green of the long leaning torch lamps from his youth where ugly crone’s nested beneath them in rags to foretell of futures through stained tarot cards.

_Ten of Swords…_

Rey pounds across a crumbling bridge, pieces breaking away and falling into the darkness, as the orbs dart up the stairs of the pillar. Kylo dodges slanted obelisks with splintered foundations and mangled archways as he takes the steps two at a time.

Despite his haste, he loses sight of Rey. He can still detect her pulse through the ether, but his limited abilities wane the farther she climbs ahead of him. _‘Scavenger!’_ No answer. He bites into his tongue irately. He’d warned her to keep up. Now she is the one leaving him behind.

He comes to an abrupt halt, fists clenched and breaths ragged. He should leave her. Who’s to know what ugly reward Snoke has planted in the sleeping recesses of her mind for him to later find. A knife in his sleep, a bullet in his back, or a crazed human-animal who would tear his eyes from their sockets?

_The girl is a danger._

And if she isn’t, if she is merely a fellow traveler on his lonely road to the Tower, then she will die an unnecessary death. Kylo’s tongue cringes and his jaw trembles at the bitter taste of that certainty.  

_Leave her._

An image suddenly floods his mind, washing him with vivid color—the icy cold and dark of a forest, the rumbling and shaking of an earthquake. He frowns. A figure materializes against the backdrop of a wide fiery crevasse. Shades of blue and red undulate across its hazy visage.

_Leave her!_

Rey’s awareness prods at him. _‘Kylo?’_

His fists tighten and release, tighten and release, but he remains silent, pulling all his thoughts deep inside, burying them. He can fade into the shadows, evade her easily if she tries to find him. He could—

“Kylo?” There’s anger in her voice. “Kylo?” Fear.

He swallows. _Leave_ , his mind whispers. _Is there truly a choice?_ Somewhere below all the logic, he thinks not. Death is the inevitable end to this journey. Will he condemn her, too? An innocent witch from the desert waste. _She condemns herself_ , he snarls selfishly. There’s no such thing as innocence in this world. It moved on with the rest of the wonders long ago, leaving a dried and empty husk of corruption and blood. _Yet…_  

Rey appears around the corner above him, the moonlight outlining her shoulders. “Kylo?”

He gazes up at her, his face impassive.

She approaches carefully, tentatively. “I thought you…” she stops, turning her face away.

“No.” he replies.

Silence, the kind that cultivates into the uncomfortable, so Kylo eliminates the distance between them. She stands a stair above him, but his height overshadows her regardless. As she peers up at him unsure he registers a dark stain beneath her nose—dried blood.

He grasps Rey’s face without her consent and inspects her. A frown pulls at her lips and her teeth grind in annoyance, but she doesn’t jerk away. He spots a trail of blood down her neck, too. His fingers follow it up into her hairline until he finds the crusted gash of a wound.

She hisses.

“It’s only a minor cut.” He says. “It needs to be cleaned so infection doesn’t spread.” Using his sleeve and her sweat, he gently wipes the blood away. “Nasal hemorrhaging is a common sign of overexertion.” His thumb traces absently at the seam of her lips and, upon realizing his mistake, quickly pulls his hand back to his side.

Rey stares at him, her face all the shades of night blue. He should have turned and walked into the shadows. He should have left her.

“The lights are gone.” She drops her eyes.

He still can.

“They’ll be back.” He assures her, stepping passed and circling up the stairs.

At the top, a grand, black marble obelisk points sharply at the sky—bizarrely perfect compared to the broken world around it—wreathed by a star calendar of inlaid quartz on the stone below. The elaborate ring is stunning to say the least, but Kylo’s eyes are drawn to the twelve bridges leading directly outward from the pillar. They disappear into the darkness beyond the moonlight.

The spokes of a wheel, twelve beams connected to the navel of creation. The Dark Tower, the black and venomous needle that threads all life together. He frowns. _A world moved on, yet a world unborn. That is the way._

“There!” Rey gasps.

Kylo turns in time to see her hurry along one of the bridges, the soft glow of the lights distinct in the blackness far ahead. He hastens after her, his agitation at her rash actions forgotten as he teeters precariously over the narrow line of stone.

The orbs flit and dance slyly before darting out of sight down a narrow corridor. Rey reaches the other side before Kylo and disturbs a colony of bats roosting under the cliff edge. They take flight with a noisy racket, swooping and shrieking in Kylo’s face as he makes it across the bridge.

Along the corridor walls are grandiose depictions of archaic rituals, human sacrifice, bloodletting and consumption of the flesh. The old and terrible gods ruled this civilization. Kylo feels Rey’s sudden hesitation as she senses all the death living in these walls. They both slow to a stop, their eyes transfixed on the flacking artwork of this brutal underworld.   

He has been here before, hasn’t he? But, how long ago? And to what purpose?

Red slices into his mind with a hateful fury and he is blinded by the image of a powerful crackling sword. Foreign sensations overwhelm him, yet he knows them. Disoriented, he staggers back.

Rey’s hands steady him, but his mind is on the walls, the ugly paintings with their murder and their old magic. He sees himself in those images, the blade in his hand, the dead look of his eyes as flat as the etched faces, the victim before him—

_‘Leave here with me. Come home.’_

Memories can be grisly things, lying in the darkness like venomous snakes with eager fangs. He has forgotten some and buried others, but what of these that are not his? These flickering, dimly lit stars fading before he can catch them? His heart constricts with fear. _What are they?_

_‘I feel it too…’_

“Kylo.” Rey’s whisper, distant, dream-like. “Kylo!”

Another image creeps up into his thoughts, one of a lush forest whetted by the sounds of war. A chase. A map. A girl…

“Kylo!” The sensation of warmth surrounds his face. Cautious fingers. “What’s wrong?” The shy caress of a thumb over his cheekbone. “Ben.” Scarcely a whisper. “Ben.” Louder now.

The name burrows into his skin, infecting him, dredging up precious faces. They bombard him with smiles, laughs and bitter frowns... shouts. His heart withers as his eyes burn. Snoke leers down at him from some high place, casting his autocratic glare over his shoulders like the blinding intensity of a sun that never sets.

“Ben.” Rey grips his face, her nails biting into his skin.

 _No._ That is not his name. Not anymore. Rage engulfs him and he moves instantly, his hands trapping her wrists in a vice grip.

A gasp, angry and alarmed.

“My name is not Ben.” He growls through his delirium.

Energy hums from her skin, prickling at his fingertips. A warning. But there’s something different. Something wrong. A sinister presence coils around him and his blood runs cold at the sound of a low smoky chuckle. It comes from Rey’s lips, but all their color has leached away. Her pupils are blown wide and her fingers press like icy talons into his face.

“No. You are Kylo Ren.” Snoke’s hateful purr vibrates from Rey’s throat. “And you, Scion of Skywalker, are my masterpiece.”

Kylo struggles against the alien grip of her hands. So this is what Snoke left him at Niima Outpost, a town full of innocent murderers and a young witch destined to walk this dreary path with him. His stomach twists. She will suffer a fate worse than those poor villagers. Worse than death.

 _Scavenger!_ His mind shouts. _You must wake!_

“Hm.” Snoke muses, cutting Rey’s face with a grin. “You would know of such a fate would you not, my loyal apprentice?”

“Let her go!” Kylo snarls as Rey’s fingers—all bone and sharpness—pierce into his flesh.

“It’s too late for that.” Snoke-Rey hums. “The truth is it is you, Kylo Ren, who condemned this child.”

Kylo’s mouth goes dry.

Snoke-Rey laughs cruelly. “Oh, tell me you haven’t forgotten now.”

Kylo closes his eyes and grits his teeth, focusing all his energy. _Scavenger! Wake now!_

“You cannot run from it.” Snoke-Rey intones, the nails at his cheeks dragging viciously down to his chin. “You will remember soon enough.”

Kylo opens his eyes, defiance flaring in his veins, but Rey’s expression stops him. He blinks, hypnotized by the distant glow of the orbs on her face, the dirt on her nose, even Snoke’s grin warping her lips.  

“Rey…” he says aloud. The name tastes forbidden.

Then, he hears it, a remote glimmer in his mind. _‘Make him stop. Please, make him stop!’_

His hands cradle her face, thumbs skimming over dazed eyes and his touch juxtaposed to Snoke’s phantom gripping into his own flesh. He reaches through the ether for her, yet he finds her body empty, caught between two likenesses.

 _Rey!_ He pushes hard, pain blossoming across his temples down to his nose. The warmth of blood touches his upper lip. _Wake Rey! Wake now! You’re strong Rey! Fight him!_  

Suddenly, a maniacal cackle beats through the corridor. “The dead man und’rstans now!”

_The Revenant. Not gone after all._

“What’s a matter, gunslinger? Ain’t got no juice?” he taunts, his filthy teeth black against the sickly shine of his face. He stands several paces down the corridor, the orbs undulating around him, his limbs bowing at odd angles.

Kylo has never seen a puppet of Snoke’s necromancy before. It’s a hideous testament to his old master’s power. “You have a message for me.”

“I’m only har so you play yer part, gunslinger.” he chortles, then points to Rey. “She carr’es the message you seek.”  

Kylo glances back at her. “Let her go.” He grounds out.

“I ain’t got her, gunslinger.” The abomination tilts its head as if a cat to a mouse and a foreboding hum emanates from the surrounding walls.

 _It’s me._ Kylo realizes. He must have triggered something Snoke has hidden in her mind the moment he awoke her shine. The realization floods his chest in a cold wave. Only she can find her way out now.

“Ain’t too dull af’er all.”

A trick. Always a trick. Kylo closes his eyes, focusing his power. The pain along his crown intensifies tenfold and he forces it deep into his gut, shackling it there. The growing hum around them warps and twists with unnatural vibrations. The Revenant is summoning what sleeps here.

Terror curdles his blood, but he squares his shoulders. _Don’t be afraid_ , he whispers to Rey as he rises to his feet. Her body remains frozen at its awkward angle, a macabre sculpture of flesh and bone. _She’s defiant, strong. She will find her way back_ , he assures himself.

_It can’t end here…_

He draws his pistols, cocking back the hammers. Kylo doubts their usefulness against a Revenant, but he has nothing else.

“Good, gunslinger. You listen well.” The Revenant sneers.

Ire bubbles at the back of Kylo’s throat. “You will serve your purpose soon enough.”

His putrid eyes crinkle with a grin. “As will you gunslinger. As will you.”

A sudden deafening crack like thunder shakes the corridor and Kylo crouches low to keep his balance. The Revenant succumbs to a fit of giggles and grabs onto a nearby statue, the orbs gaining momentum around him like angry wasps. Kylo looks back in time to see Rey’s rigid, unresponsive body toppling over and he swoops down to catch her.

Behind them, a terrible roar bellows from the depths and Kylo is thrown backwards with a vicious snap, his pistols flying from his grip and his skull connecting with the wall. The ground quakes and shudders and the low chanting of the Revenant’s voice builds around him.

His pistols—he attempts to get up, but his body feels heavy, so very heavy. He shakes at the haze clouding his mind, only making it worse. The world spins out of control and he swallows back the urge to vomit.

A dark streak of energy hastens toward him, slinking up the cliff face from the depths of the precipice like a surging storm as it licks hungrily at its jagged teeth.  

“Rey!” he groans, the first hints of desperation in his voice.

The edges of his vision darken. _I need your help. Rey… please._

**Author's Note:**

> If I get enough interest on this project, I will continue. However, keep in mind that the updates will be slow. Please remember to leave kudos and reviews! Thank you!


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